Is nothing sacred? The CPSC and Kahoot Products Inc. announced a recall of 1.6 million Cub Scout Totem badges, which were manufactured in China, because the surface paint contains lead. The badge in question in is pictured here. Parents should remove the badges from their children and contact Kahoot at (770) 552-2921, for a replacement badge.

Pregnancy and Thyroid: A new study out of Boston University School of Medicine finds that perchlorate, a naturally-occurring and man-made chemical increasingly found in humans, does not appear to disrupt the thyroid function of pregnant women. Thyroid hormone is crucial for the neurological development of the fetus, and there had been fears that perchlorate compromised the thyroid functioning in pregnant women with low-iodine diets. “In a large study of first-trimester pregnant women, which is a potentially vulnerable population, we found no effect of environmental perchlorate exposure on thyroid function, even though the amount of perchlorate in the urine was similar to that found in the U.S. population and about seventy percent of the women were mildly iodine deficient,” said Elizabeth N. Pearce, M.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine in Boston.

Awwww….Rescuers of a lost and lonely kitten feared the newborn would die when she refused to be bottle fed, but their family dog stepped up to the job.  Honey, a golden retriever, began comforting the kitten, and soon began lactating, even though she had last given birth a year and a half earlier.  The kitten took right to her surrogate mom and is apparently thriving.